Fast casual restaurants traditionally have not benefited from customer self-service efficiencies that other industries have achieved. Fast-casual restaurants operate a number of service models including waited service, counter service, and semi-counter service. Waited service means that waiters provide service to customers at their table. This is convenient for the customer, but labour costs are typically 30% of the restaurant overheads. Counter service is where a customer orders from a counter and waits to collect the food and drink. This is cost-effective to run but inconvenient for the customer. Semi-counter service where a customer selects a table, chooses from a menu, and then places an order at the counter or bar giving the table number are almost as cost-effective to run, but are inconvenient for the customer. The customer must leave the table and queue at the bar to place an order. This can be very difficult when supervising young children or with valuables such as a handbag or laptop computer etc. It may be necessary to take the children or valuables to the bar and risk losing the table to other diners. In group situations it is also necessary to remember a large order and it causes social disruption when someone has to leave the group to go to the bar.
Mobile Apps (applications) currently exist for placing orders with takeaway restaurants for delivery or collection. These typically use the GPS (Global Positioning System) on the mobile device to identify the user's location and present a list of local takeaway restaurants. Orders are then sent electronically to the restaurant for collection or delivery.
This solution is not suitable for an in-restaurant ordering system as GPS does not work indoors, and so an alternative approach is desirable for locating the customer.
These takeaway ordering systems also transmit the order to the restaurant in a standardized way and there is a problem of routing the order to the appropriate restaurant EPOS system using the required protocol and network.
QR (Quick Response) codes are commonly used to store web page URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) which direct the mobile phone browser to a pre-determined web page. However this is a fixed URL and does not allow for the identification of a particular location.